Highland Saturday

Post by **mcelrah** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 6:48 pm

My cousin from Holland and her family were visiting and her 14-year-old son was keen on flying, so I gave Adam a call. Highland was booked solid but they would try to fit him in. My 16-year-old son Jasper also expressed a desire to taste flight again (he had a tandem a couple of years ago). However, my Dutch relatives had train tickets from Union Station at 6:20 PM - and they are not early risers (lead singer and bongo player in a salsa band - this is a profession by which you can raise a family in Amsterdam, go figure...). So we were loaded and rolling by the crack of 1030. Bridge traffic sucked but we made it to Ridgely by 1215.

Carlos, Joe Gregor, Janni and I were the only solo pilots. As I was setting up, ops shifted to the new north-south grass runway on the other side of the RC field, on account of the freshening south breeze. Second cousin Lino got one of the last tandems and I got the last solo launch before ops were suspended for excessive wind. I got 35 minutes in the town thermal that Zack dropped me in, with a climb to 3300.

Thanks to the Highland crew for making a Dutch boy's dream come true! - Hugh